The Caribbean languages called « creoles » are the result of a complex history. They were created due to the contact between various populations during the time of European colonisation. The languages developed a large number of characteristics, many of which were new, and evolved in a way that always bore the mark of language contact. In the case of both the Lesser Antilles and Santo Domingo (now Haiti), a detailed linguistic analysis of old texts allow evolutionary patterns to be established. The results are very different to what could be expected with reference to rules set up by European comparativists. They open up new avenues of research regarding the comprehension of linguistic change when multiple factors disrupt ordinary systemic evolution. The model proposed here should now be of interest to linguists studying emergent languages in different areas in order to incorporate recently collected data in the study of language contact.